Fear and Loathing in Hogwarts School
by Gesithan
Summary: Gabriel Hock begins his infamous journalistic career with cynicism, drug use, and a really awesome editor. Gonzo journalism at its worst. Also, entire pages about hating Cornelius Fudge.
1. Chapter 1: Strange Vibrations

We had just gotten off of the Hogwarts Express, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, "I feel a bit light-headed". My collaborator, one "Duke" Hunter, shouted "Damn Straight!" In a tense, short voice.

The Great Hall was enchanted to show the exterior sky, a useless and petty example of wizarding "superiority". I remember that it was letting in all the gastropods. Thousands of them. Snails and slugs, slimy and sickly, sliding inside. They were piling up in the food. Dumbledore gave some sort of speech, but I don't remember a thing. "The applause seems to stun these horrible creatures," I told Duke, fitting a new cigarette into my holder absent-mindedly.

Most wizards were ill informed about drug use. The pure-bloods were the worse off, a redheaded Gryffindor had once asked me to 'about that potions accident", referring to my cigarette smoke. The Half-bloods were little better, and even the muggle-borns were poorly educated on drug use. The sole exception to this rule was ministry officials.

I snapped back into reality when a blonde first year sat down across from us. He tried to shake hands, but I mistook the gesture for some form of violence and cowered beneath the table. Duke helped me back up. He said, in a slow, carefree tone "It's okay, we're your friends. We just want to be friendly. Right, Gabe?"

I snapped up to Duke's level immediately, "No more of that talk or I put the fucking leashes on, okay?"

The first year, no doubt scared shitless, asked "So, I hear that in Gryffindor we're supposed to be really brave…"

"Fucking straight we are!" Duke said, passing him the joint he had been smoking. I remember that I ate shrimp cocktail and grapefruit.

"No…thanks?" He said. Probably a pureblood. Poor kid had no idea what it even was.

"How about some ether?" I asked him.

"W—what?"

"Never mind." I mumbled back. I became more preoccupied with the gentle sag the whole hall was exhibiting.

The next thing I remember was Duke mauling a grapefruit with a combat knife. "Just cuttin' the limes, man!" He said, not at all jovially. The first year quickly ran to the opposite end of the Gryffindor table.

"Well, I'm gonna miss him." I said, genuinely shocked at the amount of fear we instilled in the boy, despite not having any intentions of causing harm.

Cut to Gryffindor fifth-year boy's dormitory. Frantic unpacking, a scene of chaos, urgency somehow applied to an everyday situation. We quickly gathered our stock of drugs, most of which were contained in my trusty black steel briefcase. We had two ounces of chronic weed, a bag each of peyote, shrooms, salvia, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, a whisky-bottle full of cocaine, a collection of various opiates, another of amphetamines, a quart of DXM syrup, a tank of nitrous, a quart of tequila, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, a large amount of ecstasy, and five dozen amyls.

We didn't sleep that night. Instead, we took a few adderalls and mescaline. Our trip was to be different. It was a gross physical salute to the possibilities offered to us by our outcome in the genetic lottery. Our wizarding abilities. We went for a swim in the lake, I remember.

The first school day was less than successful. By choosing to do drugs rather than sleep, we snorted coke on a regular basis to stay awake. We overcompensated, to understate the situation. O.W.L. year, the year that would have the most severe affect on the quality of our lives for the rest of our lives, and we were already fucking up. Actually, the introduction to Fifth-year charms went fine. The cocaine made us beautifully attentive and focused. Flitwick was more than a little impressed with the ease in which we understood his lesson.

It was Potions where we fucked up.

Cocaine is a fickle mistress, and we spent most of Potions talking loudly about subjects utterly irrelevant to the class, despite the obvious presence of one Professor Snape. He stole 50 house points and gave us detention. We laughed in his face.

"I would expect that you boys would give a little more gravity to my lesson, since this is O.W.L. year after all. Wouldn't want to work as janitors our whole life, would we?"

"No I don't think I'll be a janitor we prefer custodian hahahah, You know you really need to get laid you know what I mean, I'm telling you this because I love you man hahahaha" I replied, mumbling and laughing the whole time.

"Very well. I think it is quite obvious why the sorting hat did not place you in Slytherin. It is certainly no concern of mine if you wish to fail. I will ask you to leave and not further interrupt the studies of your peers."

We decided that we had had enough coke, so we went sober the rest of the day. A dreary, horrible state of being if there ever was one. How do you people live like this? We rapidly descended into sleep.

The first week of school passed by in a drug-induced haze. I remember Harry Potter kept waking us up at night. Self-righteous pigfucker kept having nightmares. I offered him some opiates, but he just looked at me stupid.

That Friday, I was introduced to a decadent, vile, depraved, scum-sucking bitch of a pigfucker woman. She was the new Defense-Against the Dark Arts teacher. This was the biggest failure of a lesson I have ever had the displeasure of being party to. Let it be known that if I ever meet her, or her boss, Cornelious Fudge-fucker, in a dark alley, I will curse their legs off at the knee without warning.

This woman was obviously a ministry official, a puppet of Fudge and his fascist idiocy. I could tell because she was one of the few witches who were aware of the concept of drug use.

The absolute first contact I had with this terrible creature was her sickeningly sweet introduction. She then said something like "wands away please, wouldn't want anyone to get hurt. And could you two in the back come here please?" She pointed to us. We slowly, very slowly, got out of our chairs, and came up to her.

"Now, now dearies, don't be shy, let's see your eyes?" We were left with little choice but to remove our aviator sunglasses, revealing eyes as red as tomato slices and as dark circled as an inverse raccoon. Her face narrowed, giving the impression of a Nazi toad. The difference being, to kill a toad requires only a spotlight and a .22 rifle. To kill this vile bitch would require sorcery they don't teach you at Hogwarts, that's for damn straight.

"Well, what are your names?"

I mumbled back " I am Gabriel Hock, and this is my colleague, Duncan Hunter."

"Well you two should know that the Ministry disapproves of drug use, especially amongst students, especially during class! I suppose that you two will have to learn this lesson the hard way. Detention every night for a week, starting tonight. And no smoking, it smells simply foul!" She said, adding a sickening pointed cough. I removed the cigarette from my holder and put it out in her pumpkin juice. She was livid, but she said nothing.

Of course, you must understand that I had no intention of going to detention, just as I "forgot" to go to that of Snape. The best way to not get punished is to simply ignore it. Sure, there would someday be a consequence, but I was far from expelled.

Harry Potter, jackass that he is, tried to start a shitstorm with his friends, united in hatred against Umbridge. Maybe I would have joined in, but we felt it was in our best interests to lie low for the class. It was for this reason that we discreetly ate some morphine, sinking into blissful stupor. I remember that she was a fucking shitty teacher, she just had us read a fucking stupid book for an hour. Made me wish I had ate some acid first.

After class, I lit up my much-needed cigarette. "Well, Duke, we're up shit creek now, these Nazis are on to us. That bastard Fudge has fingers everywhere. I know he's dirty as a pigfucker from Detroit. But Umbridge's got us fucked in a corner, I hope you realize that." I vented.

"Umbridge can punish us all she wants, but drugs aren't illegal to wizards. I looked it up. The closest they can get is nonmagical intentional intoxication laws, which only exist on local levels. Unless they do something corrupt and rotten, we can't get expelled, not even if we snort horse off McGonnagal's tits while Professor Vector masturbates."

"You should be some kind of attorney, you know that? If you can keep us unmolested you can keep anybody out of the service of the state."

"Yeah man, that's the plan once I get out of this place" He said using his wand to light his cigar.

"I feel a powerful lust for shrimp cocktail, let's go to the kitchens real quick." I mumbled, snapping one of the amyls beneath my nose. I let out an animal cry of pleasure, moving in an erratic fashion.

That night came and went, retreated into the haze of my mind. The next event of note was the first quidditch match of the year, on a lovely blue-sky Saturday. We were walking down to the quidditch pitch, fairly drunk, I was armed with a flyswatter (as well as a concealed .38 revolver inside my badass leather jacket), my partner said "here, try a little sunshine," passing me a hit of acid.

I ate it, and asked him "How long do I have?"

"It'll be a goddamn miracle if we make it to our seats before you turn into a wild animal." His face was stone, but I could tell he was laughing on the inside.

"You pigfucker!" I said, proceeding to hit him around the head and neck with the flyswatter.

When we got to the pitch, everything began to go wrong. I took a wrong turn in the stands, and was shooed out of the team room by a mass of muscle. There are no words to describe the terror I felt. Things briefly returned to normal when we sat down, until my seat started to slide into the pitch. At first I hollered and screamed, fearing to let go of the chair but also struggling violently against falling to death. I then pulled myself together.

The quidditch game did not go as well as it could have. I didn't give a flying fuck about the score, or the snitch, or who suffered what violent, disfiguring injury. I was more concerned with the gigantic Hungarian Horntails swooping around the pitch. Several times I recoiled in fear. However, what really did me in was the realization that these were _drunk_ dragons. I hallucinated the dragons drinking whisky straight from the barrel. "Somebody has to stop this horrible display, before we all get burned to a crisp!" I blurted at Duke, who had brought the cocaine with him, and was busy dosing some out.

He said "you'll be fine, try and relax, it's not real, man. Have some nose candy." He passed me the bottle and spoon. I took a generous helping.

Unfortunately, I received all the wrong benefits of cocaine that day. The dragons became more ferocious, I hid behind my chair, to the annoyance of the rather pretty redhead behind me. Upon sight of her, I forgot about the terrible hallucinations and attempted to negotiate sexual entertainment. She was less than amused, and cast the bat-bogey hex on me. I was now in considerable pain. Duke decided it would be in our best interests to retire early. We left for the common room, snorted some horse, and went to sleep. I woke early the next morning, and began to write the first draft of this very book. It was the first step in what I now realize was the only career I would ever have.


	2. Chapter 2: Living the Dream

Two weekends after the Quidditch Match sponsored by Satan, Hitler, and Fudge; a very special day for me and Duke came. It was the first Hogsmeade weekend. Traditionally, we spent the weekend far more twisted on drugs than usual. The main drug of the evening was traditionally ether. Ether is truly a rotten, awful drug, only slightly more elegant than sniffing glue.

We prepared for the trip by dropping ecstasy and smoking weed in the common room. We then left with the rest of the Gryffindors for the gates of Hogwarts. We were delayed by Fred and George, who asked us to visit the shitty tavern next weekend. No matter, we told them, we always go there anyways.

The Three Broomsticks is not friendly towards drunks. Sure, you can do your drinking there, If you're over 17, but be underage or very drunk, and they throw your ass out on the streets.

To witness the true depths of depravity and inebriation, one must visit the Hog's Head. No wizard is left dry, provided he can still afford to drink. The barman does not discriminate, to understate the situation. He would feed a baby strong whisky, in a sippy-cup, provided the baby paid for it. A bouncer is not even present, that would increase costs and lower profits. A drunk in the streets is not buying more beer.

Apparently, Harry Potter was having some sort of meeting there. "Might as well show up," I told Duke, "It's only technically illegal and I think he mentioned something about revenge against Fudge. How bad could it be?"

"I don't know, we'll find out when we get there."

Ether is a horrible drug. It makes you behave like the village drunkard in some early Irish novel. We lost all basic motor skills, flailing and stumbling horribly. Our brains were mostly intact, retracted in horror due to a sudden inability to communicate with the spinal column. This is interesting because you can see yourself behaving in this horrible way, but are powerless to do anything about it.

The first place we went was a kitsch little tea shop, I forget the name. We didn't stay long, because they kicked us back out, huffing ether from a rag, continuing with this madness. We stumbled, dissociated, through Zonko's, Honeyduke's, and somebody's house. We went to the Three Broomsticks, but were stopped before we even got in. The bouncer was well muscled, and presumably possessed magical talent, at least in the department of jinxes, hexes, and curses.

We decided that it would be better to try and sneak in the back door. Sure enough, behind the pub there was only two Hufflepuffs having sex and a drunk wizard puking his guts into his piss puddle. I pissed in the alley before hand, I remember that. My advice to the reader: Don't have sex in the alley behind a bar. Behind, say, a clothing store, you should be fine. But the alley behind a bar is essentially a giant trough urinal.

As it turns out, the back door could only be opened from the inside. So we decide to shop for new clothes. We went to a seedy place, well of the main drag. I bought a burgundy-paisley bathrobe, tartan trousers, a grey newsboy cap, and pair of green teashades. Duke bought some Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, without buttons. It was when we tried to leave that everything went wrong.

"Hey, you guys…you can't just take our clothes!" The clerk said. Some boy named "Tom Rid". Seemed like a dick.

"Excuse me, Ieeeee…believe we have forgotten about the, uh, monetary transaction?"

"That will be ten sickles for both your clothes." He said. Duke reached into his pockets, and we spilled an amount of coin that looked about right.

"This is five knuts." He told us, with loathing in his eyes.

Unfortunately, we had already started on the way out. "Right, keep the change," I said as we left, fitting in a fresh cigarette.

"Fucking preps," He said. Never in my life have I heard this word, before or since.

Duke then said "I'm getting bored of the ether, did we bring anything else?"

I searched the pocket of both my new and old outfits. I found a few pellets of mescaline in the pocket of my leather jacket. "Let's take these, I guess, got nothing better to do," I mumbled.

We ate the mescaline, huffed some more ether, and returned to the Hog's Head. We ordered a round of strong mead. We spent the next hour engaging in idle chat. I struck up a conversation with a fellow American, a businessman from Texas. Only in that vile state would a businessman voluntarily go by the name "Jimbo". I figure that he must have been a cheap bastard, staying at the Hog's Head when he obviously possessed some degree of wealth.

It was getting very late when the mescaline hit us. Walking back to the castle, and then a freight train ran right through us. "Jesus fuck man, do you see the trees? I was not aware they possessed the capability to move like that," I said, gripping Duke's arm.

"Oh fuck, I swear to fuck I will mace you! I will mace you! I will fucking mace you!" Duke kept saying to himself, holding his can of mace at arms length, fighting some horrible enemy. Sometimes Duke scared me, in that he seemed more inclined to violence than the average drug user. Perhaps things would not have gone the same way if he was less crazy.

But I was less than maintained myself. I lost my grip, forgot that the giant hellhounds racing out of the forest, no matter how convincing, had no ability to actually eat us. I scared away a group of third-year Ravenclaw girls, screaming and jabbering to Duke about the Hellhounds. "Just try and focus, man, got to maintain, maintain," He told me, with a far away voice and without even glancing at me. I could tell that he was scared shitless of whatever horrible things he was hallucinating.

Duked puked on the shoes of a Slytherin. It was very lucky that the Slytherin was quickly forced to depart to his own common room. I have little doubt that the ensuing shitstorm would escalate into a riot that left only Professor Vector alive. We were whisked and carted back to our own common room, where we celebrated our rescue by smoking some weed and going to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3: The Rant

I awoke the next morning with a splitting hangover. It seems that I forgot, when writing the last chapter, to tell you about the prodigious alcohol consumption that I indulged in. Four beers, two bottles of mead, a firewhiskey on the rocks, as well as an indeterminate amount of butterbeer. Duke was still asleep. I decided the best cure would be to drop four adderalls before attempting to relax in the common room.

Oh shit. There was a Transfiguration report due today, and all I had was a title and a date. Fortunately, the amphetamines produced good vibrations and I had a report that was several times the required length. Then I decided to go wake Duke up.

I decided that the best way to wake Duke, and everyone else, would be to empty my revolver into the wall above Dean Thomas's bed. I am ashamed of this dangerous behavior to this day. But it was hilarious, everybody was panicking and screaming like a baby penguin on speed. "Why'd you fuckin' do that, man? Have McGonnagal on your ass like stink on shit, that what you want?" Duke asked, evidently in no less of a hangover.

"It is time to get up, need to wake up, be awoken, get out of bed, up and adam, rise and shine, early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise let's try and get to breakfast early because you know how they make good spicy sausages but those little bastards always eat them first…" I carried on by way of reply.

"Don't tell me you took the adderall already!" Duke said.

"Just a little bit," I said, crouching low. Duke got out the cocaine. "Be careful you fat bastard, you're gonna be fuckin' addicted," I mumbled.

"You know perfectly well," He paused to snort, "ain't nothin' Madam Pompfrey can't fix."

Seamus was watching this shameless display with unusual interest, rather than the puzzled looks most wizards gave us. My eyes were darting rapidly between the two, eager to see how this would go down. "What's that?" He asked after what seemed like an hour.

"Peruvian marching powder. Columbian nose candy. It's cocaine, my friend. Take a few lines an hour and you can work at 120% capacity until you stop taking cocaine. I personally guarantee you that if you do cocaine today, you will either get all O's or all T's. Want some?"

Seamus looked confused, innocent, naïve. But he bit anyway. I figure his schoolwork was lacking. "Sure, how does this potion work?"

"You just use the straw, in your nose, snort up the line, you see?" I demonstrated. A good excuse to get a coke buzz going before breakfast. So Duke cut up a nice, small newbie line for Seamus. The kid sniffed it away all to eagerly.

"Oooh, wooow! Wooow! I feel great! I feel better than great! I feel like having sex," Seamus proclaimed. Yes, it was a proclamation. He was not talking to us, but to himself mostly. Just reveling in the ecstasy of using drugs for the first time. We'd have to drag the poor kid to his classes, probably.

"Come on, you fiend, we must eat…breakfast!" I said.

When we got to the table, Seamus didn't even try to keep on the down-low. He was talking to every girl within earshot.

"Don't look now, Gabe, but here comes Tiffany," Duke said. Tiffany was my 'girlfriend' at the time. A more heinous bitch I have never known.

"Where have you been?" She accused me, in that mockery of playfulness that heinous bitches are wont to speak in. "How come I didn't see you at the feast? The game? The _Hogsmeade visit_?"

"It is because…of certain, circumstances…preventing me from seeing you do to bad vibrations between us?" I mumbled, eyes cast at my shoes.

"Have you been doing drugs again? You know I don't like that." She said, pulling back the curtain to reveal the goose-stepping nazi bitchenfuhrer that she really was.

I said "You got drunk almost every night last year."

"But that was different," She said.

All of a sudden, Seamus, horrible fiend that he was that day, cut in with "I don't mean to offend you, but your tits are simply lovely."

Tiffany dropped the argument and left.

"Goddamit, you fiend, pull your shit together!" I said, slapping Seamus somewhere on the side of the head.

Fast forward to another depressing Defense lesson. Perhaps the fatal flaw in Wizard society is that our sense of superiority is too deeply rooted. For millennia, we have had the upper hand, been totally justified in arrogance and prejudice. It has only been over the last century that Muggles have caught up to us. Hell, some things they've even done _better_ than we do. Owl post looks like a big pile of shit next to the Internet. Need to haul a lot of stuff at once? Rent a truck, or good fucking luck trying to load a grand piano onto a broomstick or stuffed in the fireplace. Granted, magic carpets worked pretty well, but Fudge, raging, gaping sphincter fuck that he is, banned them from England.

Apparantely, a carpet is a "mugggle object", defined as being _so hopelessly muggle in nature_ that trying to fuck with it is illegal. The fact is, with muggles finally being more-or-less parallel to us, there will be some changes in wizarding society. Your Grandpa probably won't like them. This policy of total seperation will never work. In case you've forgotten, we live ON THE SAME FUCKING LAND. Think they can't challenge us yet? I know from experience that a bullet travels a lot fucking faster than _Avada Kedavra_. Shit, I've used this to my advantage many times.

My question is how is it our decision to decide what Muggles can handle? Do you really think that their minds will be so fucking blown by the concept of magical people that they'll start raping each other until we all die? Of course not, that would be stupid. The Ministry reeks of covered-up Magocratic tendencies. Very rarely have we consciously decided to take less power over muggles.

And I do believe that no one human being quite represents every fault any magical entity has ever possessed since Eden as well as the fugly Dolores Umbridge. Fuck that woman. But don't fuck her, because she is evil and has teeth in her cunt, which will bite your cock off. Probably. Seriously though, she is a perfect example of the "pure-blood" witch: In-bred, diseased, unhealthy, unstable, weaselly, conniving, irrational, and with a chip on her shoulder the size of Wales.

And here she is, under the guise of "teacher" but obviously a spy. Cornelius Fudge's least favorite yet most sickeningly ambitious underling, sent to find excuses to creep Ministry power into Hogwarts. Their plan has always been the creation of a three-tiered Magocracy, with the old incestuous pureblood families in charge, the rest of the wizards in the middle, muggles on bottom (and squibs below that). Muggles, made to do work a wizard can do with a swish and a flick. Muggles, no doubt rounded up as concubines, eaten as food. All the while the Ministry conveniently forgets that, oh yeah, God did not personally appoint them to be the one true government of the world and everything in it.

Remember that muggles are not nearly as weak as we assume. After all, the "witch-burnings" that took place in the Renaissance (_not_ Medieval, as most wizards assume) were perpetrated by muggles. If wizards are so superior, how could, even with their technology so far behind us, they could still subdue us to be burned in the first place? The answer I'm sure the inbreds will give you is that we let them, in order to "get rid of them for a while". But I find that less likey than the idea that Muggles kicked wizard ass at least occasionally.

But anyway, Dolores Umbridge is a horrible fucking pig-bitch who deserves to have her guts pulled out and eaten while she is magically kept alive for the next 22 years. Then somebody should curse her legs off. Also, she utterly fucked up at teaching a class. It was much more interesting to watch Seamus's coked-up antics. Duke leaned over to me and said, "I think we'll have to cut the boy off soon," and I said something vaguely affirmative.

I hate to start another rant so soon after the last one, but Harry Potter, "boy who I don't give two shits", etc. etc, really, really, needs to learn when to shut up. Here comes more bullshit from Umbridge about how the world is "totally fucking safe forever, never leave mother's tit, because you'll never be old enough, but just stay fucking innocent and nothing bad will ever happen".

Harry replied with "Blah blah blah bullshit I'm GOING TO DIE, please look at me, I need attention, I have no fucking clue what is going on could somebody please help me and give me attention because never once have I demonstrated having even basic research skills."

Or at least, that's what they were really saying. It ended with Harry being shipped off to a fuckton of detentions, where no doubt some grotesque and cruel punishment was waiting. Probably sentenced to two hours of getting ass-fucked by Umbridge wearing a strap-on and bondage gear. Good fucking luck, Mr. Potter. Now don't be such a raging jackass.

Now, you as my reader are probably thinking "well, pot calling kettle black much?", and I reply to you with a "shit no." You see, I may rant and scream and rave in my articles, but _those are the articles_. The writing process, at least for me, consists of four steps: Take drugs, Go do thing, take more drugs, write about thing. Notice the big-ass gap between "doing" and "writing about". True, an early version of this rant was already bouncing around my amphetamine-wracked brain, but I sure as shit wasn't shouting this out loud for the class.

My peer, Mr. Potter, however, is kind of a jackass. Sure, it's fucking wonderful that he's destined to kill Mr. Evil and all that, but that doesn't excuse you from manners. Only a press pass from _Lullaby Weekly_ gives you that privelage. And I'm 95% sure you have never even fucking heard about this magazine. Why do I think that? Because you've never exhibited knowledge of _any_ topic before other wizards taught you about it.


	4. Chapter 4: Amotivational Syndrome

The next event of any note that year was an unauthorized, illegal visit to Hogwarts. In fact, the whole miserable chain of events that you will have the displeasure of reading began on that horrible September Wednesday. We skipped all classes, because fuck it.

The first thing I remember we did was huff nitrous in a broom closet behind the common room. Then, we snuck down to Hogsmeade through an unlikely secret passage. We smoked some salvia in an alley. Horrible stuff, but it doesn't last long. We then snapped two amyls, lit up some blunts, and began a terrifying journey.

We stumbled into a brothel. We never intended to solicit a prostitute, mind you. It's just the sort of misunderstanding that happens when one is ripped, twisted, wasted.

An older woman, who would have been pretty about five years ago, but was worn, torn, and burnt-out. She was obviously in charge here. "You two boys looking to spend the night? Just start talkin' to one of the girls."

I made the mistake of speaking. "Uh, actually, we, huh. We can, horribly hungry? Need to find, a place. Ee."

She looked over at Duke, who said "My friend has a bad heart. St. Mungo's keeps him on strange and terrible potions."

And then the revelation that would change everything. The brothel was tiny, in the back and second story of a teahouse. There was a seedy lounge and a narrow hallway that led to six rooms, no doubt barely large enough to fit a mattress. Coming out of the hall was a horrific visage. It was Cornelius Fudge.

I had a moment of relative clarity. "That rotten, evil bastard!" I said to Duke, nudging him in the gut, "I knew he was corrupt! We must obtain proof of this. Come on, you pigfucker! We're trailing him. It's time to stir the shit."

The woman asked "How was everything?"

Cornelius said "It was fine, as always, madam." I had half a mind to shoot his knees out right there, then to curse his lungs on fire.

All of a sudden, Duke was speaking to me. He said "Double standard much? I know damn well you wouldn't give two shits if that was anybody else. What you on about, man?"

"No, it's not that I want to just start a hooker scandal. I want more. I want this bastard crucified, hung, drawn, quartered, and eaten."

"Well, it's not like we were any good at school, anyway."

We started with the obvious information sources. The local newspaper stand. We read the _Daily Prophet_ first, I remember, with good mead and Cornish pasties. The _Prophet_ is useless, and I question their objectivity. So far, the evidence has all been that the _Prophet_ is nothing more than Ministry propaganda. The local paper, _Hogsmeadian Herald_, was just as useless, but for different reasons. It was mostly advertising for local business, cut with typical bullshit like "Fallen Tree Destroys Home". The third paper was the first-tier propaganda, the weekly Ministry pamphlet that prints 100% pure, uncut bullshit. My advice to anybody who acquires such a pamphlet is to use it to wipe your ass.

We then read magazines. We started with _The Quibbler_. Holy fuck. I wouldn't be caught within ten miles of a _Quibbler_ by-line. I thought that it might be parody at first, but then I came to the tragic realization that Xenophilius (damn near the entire staff, by the look of it) believed every horribly insane word of it. Never, in my wildest acid trips, have I thought up shit like this.

The next magazine was _Witch Weekly_. Shit. I could feel my testicles falling off, shouting back at me: "You won't be needing us anymore, so we'll just be off." Celebrity gossip. An update on Gilderoy Lockhart's recovery. That bastard is sure as shit a lot better of now. "Most charming smile award" given to some shit-eating Quidditch player called Oliver Wood. Bullshit, filler, and horseshit. Also, a top-ten bestseller list. As I suspected: Nine rock-shit romance novels and one thriller. Affirmative action strikes again.

So, we concluded that we would have to do all the goddamn work ourselves. We bought a pair of illegally-modified omniscopes from a shady pawn shop, and decided to hit the Knight Bus.

A gangly, semieducated conductor took our money, with a snide comment "shouldn' you boys be back 'at the castle?"

Neither me nor Duke replied, going to the third floor for privacy. On the Knight Bus, the first floor is by far the most filled, with all the disillusioned wizards who want to spend as little time as possible on the bus. The rooftop seats are an equally bad choice unless it is raining; goofy tourists want to see all the sights, so they climb all the way up there. The second story is populated mainly by overflow from the first deck and, during rain, tourists. But nobody ever goes to the third deck, unless they want privacy.

We took great, winding, high-speed maneuvers through the British Isles, teleporting here, magically not wrecking there. At one point an entire Glasgow block had to jump out of the way of the Knight Bus, as it went tearing through Scotland. As usual, cruel enchantments prevented the muggles from noticing.

After about thirty minutes, the bus came to a horrible, tumbling halt in front of the Leaky Cauldron. Our stop.

"My name is….Thompson!" I began telling Tom, the barman, "And we must have a suite! We'll probably keep it for a while, but I must ask that you never allow housekeeping to directly enter the room until we leave! Have them leave a pile of fresh towels and soap outside our door every morning."

Tom wrote down on his ledger, speaking as he wrote: "Name: Thompson, length-of-stay, indeterminate, room 44. Other:…"

Duke said "And could you send up six shrimp cocktails, four Italian subs, a dozen grapefruits, eight Cornish pasties, five servings of fish and chips, a dozen cheeseburgers with a dozen fries, a quart of vodka, a quart of tequila, and five gallons of beer?"

"…I'll notify the kitchen," Tom said, his demeanor becoming nervous, the vibrations between us getting nasty. I felt it was time to get to our suite.

The "suite" was nothing of the sort. Simply a double bed, a dresser, a desk, a table, a wireless, and a dirty window overlooking the trains. It was the right sort of room to base our operations from; boring enough that we would take the drugs and remember to go do something.

**[AN]: Okay, it's high damn time I wrote one of these. Basically, I wrote these first four chapters over four nights, between the hours of 11 and 2 am. Please keep that in mind when you try to come to my house to murder me for shitting all over your favorite characters. The idea for the story came when, (surprise, I know) I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and then read OoP that night. It was one of those "lightbulb!" moments. So enjoy your gonzo wizardry. Oh yeah, JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, and please let HST rest in opiated peace. **


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